It’s a Breeze as Bloom completes a hat-trick

GALES buffeted Champions Day but it was Librisa Breeze that made the most impact on the Flat season finale at Ascot, bouncing back from some unlucky runs with a length-and-a-quarter win in the Champion Sprint.

The 10-1 shot, trained by Dean Ivory and ridden by Robert Winston, runs in the blue and white colours of Brighton & Hove Albion chairman Tony Bloom, who was completing a hat-trick.

At Newmarket last weekend, Bloom’s colours were carried by Withhold, who landed a massive gamble in the Cesarewitch Handicap.

Then on Friday night, Brighton beat West Ham United at the London Stadium.

Bloom said: ‘I don’t like to compare [wins]. It has been a brilliant week and Group One wins don’t come around very often.

‘This is my first Group One so that is very special. The Cesarewitch was a big race for us last week and Brighton winning is a big result. It has been an incredible eight days.

‘I have been around the block so I know it is not always that easy.’

Runner-up was the William Haggas-trained Tasleet, with Aidan O’Brien’s Caravaggio third. Favourite Harry Angel hit the front but the testing ground tired him and he faded into fourth.

For Winston, a jockey who could have achieved so much more had injury not intervened, it was a first Group One win since he landed the 2004 Cheveley Park Stakes on Magical Romance.

‘I was thinking about hanging up my boots this time last year,’ he said. ‘But as soon as I sat on this horse I knew he would win a Group One. I’ll be around now as long as he is.’